Massachusettes and Maine areas!

Massachusetts Adoptee Rights Legislation

Please if, you are in MA, or have an adoption situation regarding MA, take some time and go read Bastardette’s excellent coverage of the issue for Open records bills currently going on there! MUY IMPORTANTE!!! Write some letters please! Make some calls! Don’t let this 34 year black out be made into law!

Maine Adotee Rights Legislation

Also, if you are a MAINE area adoptee or parent..nature or nurture, know that the Maine there is a new bill for 2007, LD1084 which is almost identical to last year’s (slight modification of who has access: adoptee, adoptee’s attorney or adoptee’s offspring if the adoptee is deceased) but with 7 (of 10) new legislative sponsors. Maine does not plan to give up, nor to compromise the basic human, civil right for every citizen to have access to their original truthful (sadly not always the case) birth certificate, for the same nominal fee. The new name is OBC for ME (formerly ACCESS 2006) but the website has not been updated since last spring as the person maintaining it has cancer and has undergone treatment.

A wrinkle in Maine’s efforts is that a study resolution has been proposed by a member of the Judiciary committee, LD 391 On the surface it would seems like a good idea but we believe it is a stall technique to delay the bill. The state has no money to fund yet another study and they have ignored the results (which lead credence to our bill) of the 1989 Maine Adoption Task force study and the 2005 Maine Vital Records Study.

If you would like to be involved on the MAINE battle, please contact Bobbi Beavers at rbbeavers@comcast.net. They can use all the help they can get!!!

About the Author

Claudia Corrigan DArcy
Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy has been online and involved in the adoption community since early in 2001. Blogging since 2005, her website Musings of the Lame has become a much needed road map for many mothers who relinquished, adoptees who long to be heard, and adoptive parents who seek understanding. She is also an activist and avid supporter of Adoptee Rights and fights for nationwide birth certificate access for all adoptees with the Adoptee Rights Coalition. Besides here on Musings of the Lame, her writings on adoption issue have been published in The New York Times, BlogHer, Divine Caroline, Adoption Today Magazine, Adoption Constellation Magazine, Adopt-a-tude.com, Lost Mothers, Grown in my Heart, Adoption Voice Magazine, and many others. She has been interviewed by Dan Rather, Montel Williams and appeared on Huffington Post regarding adoption as well as presented at various adoption conferences, other radio and print interviews over the years. She resides in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband, Rye, children, and various pets.

7 Comments on "Massachusettes and Maine areas!"

  1. waving the white flay in defeat | March 26, 2007 at 5:49 pm |

    CLAUD, what is the point of all this, please tell me. when people like PETUNIA are rasing our children that we lost to adoption. i for one, offically GIVE THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  2. waving the white FLAG in defeat and learning to spell | March 26, 2007 at 5:50 pm |

    oops, i can’t even spell!! see above

  3. waving the white flag in surrender | March 26, 2007 at 6:20 pm |

    i am talking about petunia’s latest post.

  4. Oh, I had to really search to find that ..I don’t read there….brick wall meets head to much.

    It use to be called “stupid stuff..”..and umm, sometimes, I choose not to put my energy where it is obviously wasted.

  5. OT: do any of you eloquent first moms want to take a shot at this? I found it rather disturbing.

    http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/

  6. Thanks for the update. I knew Maine would be moving, but I didn’t have the details. So far so good, but I’m concerned that the bill is in the same committee with the same 2 co-chairs who are not only scared to death of records access, but seem to hate adotpees. These people are bad news.

    As for the “study committee”–that’s always what politicians and others in power do when they don’t want to deal with something. They set up a study committee or task force and the “problem” goes away. See–we’re trying to do something. Whenver you see “study committee” go for your gun.

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